The outcast

by Selma Lagerlöf

The accused was a man about forty-five years of age, and looked almost a giant as he lay there in his cell. His hair was fair and curly as a child's, his complexion had the delicate colouring of youth, with a touch of deeper warmth on the cheeks. A handsome face, on the whole, with well-cut features. Only the eyes, though handsome too in a way, were unprepossessing, with a look in them now staring boldly, now flitting uncertainly from floor to ceiling, from corner to corner.

"Each according to his kind," he thought. "Judges and public prosecutors and that sort must be taken their way. Have to talk a special sort of truth to them, by reason that the real truth cannot reach their hearts, unless it be interpreted unto them."

And all the time he lay here telling himself that he had really committed no murder; he saw himself cold and hungry, dressed in miserable beggar's rags, coming in late one evening to a lonely village hidden away among barren, rocky hills. The door had by accident been left unfastened; he remembered how terrified the old folk had been as they looked up and saw him come in; how hurriedly they had closed the drawer in the table at which they sat. He had spoken kindly, sat down with them by the fire, to warm himself, eaten the food they gave him without hesitation, but aware all the time that they were far from glad of his company, and wished him a thousand miles away.

"And when you happen to be an old convict, sentenced to imprisonment for life, and let out after twenty years of it for exemplary behaviour, it's only natural to be suspected. I can't blame any one for that. I might have thought the same myself." Once more he was quoting from his defence of the morning.

And all the time he saw clearly in his mind's eye how he and the two old people had settled down to rest for the night, they in their bed in one corner, and he on a straw mattress at the other end of the room. The fire was still burning when they went to bed, and he could see the two gray heads side by side. He felt by no means comfortable himself; his bed on the floor was hard and uninviting; he was in ill-humour, and in particular it annoyed him to feel that these two old people grudged him the shelter they could not refuse. The axe that the old man had used to cut a few twigs to put under the pot still lay on the chopping-block; he wondered if it had been left there on purpose, with the blade gleaming in the light of the fire. Easy to find, and ready to hand—was it that?

He began to feel sleepy, but dared not sleep. Once he did so, the old couple would have him at their mercy. The old man, despite his seventy years, looked active enough still. And they were two to one.

He had told them in court that morning, a man who has done his twenty years in prison doesn't want to go back again in a hurry. And really, he ought to be less suspected than others. "But I know it's not that way, as a rule—or, at least, people don't generally act on it."

And as he repeated his well-chosen words he saw himself once more lying on the floor in the little house, straining his ears to listen to the old couplets whispering, the old man urging something, and the woman trying to dissuade him. "Wait till he's asleep," he heard her say. And the vagabond on his hard straw pallet felt more and more uneasy. It was plain that the old couple had money in the house, and were afraid he might steal it. There's a power of danger more than folk would think in the life of a poor vagabond.

And he was cautious, and pretended to go to sleep, and snored loudly, waiting to see what they would do. The old man said his prayers, and that was all; but that in itself was a masterly piece of deceit to one who knew what they had in mind—one who could see how the blade of the axe shone in the light of the dying fire, all ready to hand—one who understood well enough that they were only trying to lull his suspicion to rest.

"But," thought the accused, "you can't get a judge to believe a thing like that. Won't hear a word of self-defence, especially when it's a poor wanderer coming all unarmed and helpless into a strange house. But, for my part, I can't call it murder at all. If I hadn't got up and smashed in their skulls, they'd have smashed in mine. I don't believe they were asleep at all, though they lay quite still and never moved. It was all a sham. And if I'd been fool enough to go off to sleep myself in earnest, what would have happened then? They'd have been up and out of bed in a moment, with the axe. And after, what could be easier than to bury a body and hide it up, in a wild place like that? No, it's almost wicked to tempt people, having it all so easy."